TouchArcade Game of the Week: ‘DUNKYPUNG’

The idea behind the TouchArcade Game of the Week is that every Friday afternoon we post the one game that came out this week that we think is worth giving a special nod to. Now, before anyone goes over-thinking this, it doesn’t necessarily mean our Game of the Week pick is the highest scoring game in a review, the game with the best graphics, or really any other quantifiable “best” thing. Instead, it’s more just us picking out the single game out of the week’s releases that we think is the most noteworthy, surprising, interesting, or really any other hard to describe quality that makes it worth having if you were just going to pick up one.

These picks might be controversial, and that’s OK. If you disagree with what we’ve chosen, let’s try to use the comments of these articles to have conversations about what game is your game of the week and why.

Without further ado…

DUNKYPUNG

Sometimes a game comes along and for whatever reason you just CAN’T STOP PLAYING IT. This week that game has been DUNKYPUNG($2.99) for both myself and Eli. DUNKYPUNG (that is fun to say) is the new game from solo developer Nathan Meunier, who in 2017 brought us the awesome card game Missile Cards, which we also chose for our Game of the Week back then. Hey, you’re two for two Nathan! DUNKYPUNG is a pretty simple game at its heart; you simply bounce a ball around a room using flapping mechanics trying to avoid wave after wave of increasingly dangerous hazards. This is actually a level-based game, and every fourth wave you’ll square off against a boss before moving on to the next level.

Let’s just be real here: DUNKYPUNG is f’ing hard! Like punch you to the ground and then kick you in the teeth hard. But this is one of those games that is so mechanically sound, with such great feeling physics, that the moment you die and exit out of the game in disgust you’re almost instantly tapping its icon again, helplessly pulled back in to give it just one more go. Because surely THIS time you won’t have your ass handed to you. And in fact that’s pretty true. DUNKYPUNG really rewards skill, and the more you play and practice the better you can feel yourself getting at the game. It’s super rewarding. And maddening at the same time. Plus, in a rarity for this type of game, DUNKYPUNG is a fully premium game with no ads or IAP. So if you fancy yourself a brutally difficult arcade game that feels perfect on mobile, DUNKYPUNG is calling your name.